Authors: Hannah Khanshali, Zara McPartland, Yori Xhumari, Leonidas Kalpaxis.
The Spotted Lanternfly has become quite famous over the past year, and that is due to its rapid spread. In our research, we analyzed the spread of the Spotted Lanternfly versus the populations of its preferred host: the Tree of Heaven. We hypothesized that if the favored host of an invasive insect (the Tree of Heaven) is populous in a certain region, then the population of the invasive species (the Spotted Lanternfly) will rapidly increase in the regions where this preferred host is located. We downloaded observational data of the Tree of Heaven and the Spotted Lanternfly from 2021 in 9 states in the Northeast from Gbif/inaturalist, and used a percent home range overlap to analyze the correlation between the coordinates/locations of the observations, to see to which percentage the location of the Tree of Heaven predicts the location of the Spotted Lanternfly. We received significant results, confirming our hypothesis. It is hopeful that our data can be used to analyze high risk areas where the Tree of Heaven is densely populated, so mediation can be focused. It is possible the SLF can infect other species in the future, and this analysis may be useful in predicting and slowing the spread.
